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Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

And if these remnants of weapons were so dangerous and Bush and Cheney knew exactly it was there (which is proven from the CIA report I just read), then why did they not destroy it themselves? If they were so dangerous, then why were they not destroyed when the US military was over there and could have done something about it.

I am with Jake Tapper, you have to be a jerk or an idiot to refer to John McCain as "Songbird John"!!!!!!

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Originally Posted by Mr.Nick

Of course you don't.

What you want to hear is that Saddam was awesome and that Iraq having WMD's was a lie.

He was a murderous dictator.

And whether Saddam had "WMD" or not, we'll probably never know. We never found them, most of Powell's presentation to the UN that sold the war to the American public was false or never confirmed, we never found any evidence of ongoing chemical or biological or nuclear programs, etc.

I'm not a Bush fan but I know that is epic bull****..... How can someone gas the Kurds on live TV then turn around and tell the world he has no WMD's then they're found, no one cares because they want to believe in their political fantasies, then turn around and make excuses when rebels start using them?

He absolutely HAD them, but of course after that was a war then years of inspections and sanctions.

And how does my post relate - pretty simple - you claim one cannot rebuild a weapon or create one - yet I call bull**** and say it's happened numerous times and that I can throw lighting bolts at people if I wanted to just to prove that fact.

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Originally Posted by jmotivator

If you would actually follow the argument being made that would really help. I was responding to someone arguing that the justification was centered on Saddam's nuclear program. I stated there were many more reasons that that.

Yes, the fear of biological or chemical weapons and another 9/11.

This is a very odd statement. The Powell argument was that Saddam had violated many requirements of the cease fire agreement. UN Resolution 1441 is simply a reaffirmation of UN Resolutions 660,661, 678, etc. that were all terms of the original cease fire. The argument was about suspected stockpiles of weapons, unlawful capabilities to produce, unlawful attempts to reconstitute programs and blocking of UN teams from inspections of key Iraqi sites.

By violating the terms of the cease fire Saddam had entered a war posture. That is all the justification needed for restarting the hot war.

First of all, Powell didn't say, to the effect, "He might have weapons, he might have mobile labs capable.." He said the U.S. KNEW those things. A direct line was drawn between him having tose weapons and the safety of the U.S., we were told to fear another 9/11 if we didn't act, potentially a nuclear weapon. And we never found evidence for any of it. That was the 'justification' and it just wasn't true.

The UN stuff, and you know this, was just the legal wrapping around the WMD allegations. Without the WMD allegations, there is no ground war.

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Originally Posted by notquiteright

The ISG (Iraq Survey Group) report did a most excellent job of that. Many online sources have it. The Faux reports, while attempting to ramp the threat up, do show how little was found. (did you read CP's links????) The 2007 CIA report is online. Rather than reinvent the wheel, go check for yourself... if you find a massive stockpile of ready to use Chems by all means post it....

They did that survey report and addendum is from 2005. The CIA report you identified is from 2007.

The date today is June 20, 2014. So you're claim then is the exact same chemicals and inventory exists. Is that your assumption given a 9 year old and 7 year old report?

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

Originally Posted by cpwill

The argument that no WMD were found except for the ones that we found, but that they don't count, is a very poor argument.

You can't sell a war based on the existence of military grade WMD existing, being distributed to commanders in the field, assert we know they have existing mobile production labs - see, there's one there, and over here are five sites we know store chemical weapons, etc. (reread what Powell told the UN), and then when we find NONE of that, but we do find some old, degraded, unusable except for 'dirty bomb' material, pretend that's enough to justify the war.

If they told us old degraded stuff was the reason we went in, fine. That's not what was sold to the world.

Re: ISIL seizes Saddam's chemical weapons plant

If you have the parts - yes it's like building IKEA furniture if you're an engineer or have some background in engineering.

You do realize a 15-year-old build a nuclear reactor in his shed right? (which was stupid btw because he almost died).

If you have the right parts for a weapon - there will always be someone around to put it back together...... Someone built it didn't they? so what makes you think for a second someone couldn't rebuild it?

Don't confuse engineer or design with build either...

You do realize these weapons are obsolete. They no longer work! They are useless.